


Raising Hell (and Making New Friends!)

by fiveyaaas



Series: In Another Life [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Number Five | The Boy, Bisexual Vanya Hargreeves, Child Abuse, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, I would almost call this...., Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Rated M for later Chapters, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Slow Burn, Vanya Hargreeves Gets a Hug, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Vanya Hargreeves summons a demon, and a demon bff!!!!, and it influenced some of my anger, and summons Five, except it’s, however i did spill hot chicken soup while i wrote, i wrote this for crow as a bargain, more tags/characters to be added, no campbell’s chicken&stars were hurt in the making of this fic, or at least a much more slow burn than the chicken&stars, putting this in my series of aus bc why not, rip campbell’s chicken&stars, that’s it that’s the fic, this is me ignoring fiveya week lbr, this is me ignoring kinktober lbr, this is me ignoring responsibility lbr, this starts as platonic but it will be romantic, to make a best friend, towards chicken noodle soup, who is like “oh god she’s cute okay yeah I can do this”
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:54:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26802481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveyaaas/pseuds/fiveyaaas
Summary: Vanya had gathered the candles, recited the Latin, did everything right, yet she still wound up with this asshole incredulously asking, “you raised a demon because you wanted a best friend?”
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Series: In Another Life [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1868005
Comments: 36
Kudos: 183
Collections: The Occult Academy





	1. Lighting Candles (and Weaponizing Sodium!)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nightsrk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightsrk/gifts).



> This is for Crow, who bargained this fic out of me when I was showing off all the ideas for fics I wanted to write. Thank you for convincing me to write this because I am having so much fun omfg. 
> 
> Vanya is 18 in this, and it’s the summer before she goes off to college. I’ll explain why she’s still living with Reg in the next chapter but basically, manipulation through money. I tagged “child abuse” because he’s been abusing her since she was a child, so if that’s a trigger for any of y’all, make sure to not read/stop reading if it upsets you!!! Take care of yourselves!!!

Father was who pushed her to do it. 

She had no intention of doing it, but then he had told her that she was worthless and a failure just one too many times. 

And she was desperate. 

So desperate.

She just needed a friend, and nobody wanted to be her friend. 

No one, that is, except for someone who had no  _ choice.  _

So she walked to Michael’s, buying already-on-sale candles with her 40% off coupon, seeing a bargain for what it was and just going for it. She contemplated buying salt at the grocery store, but she remembered she had a few cans of soup at the house, knowing they surely had enough sodium content to protect her in case the demon got angry. Maybe the demon would even want her to heat up the soup, and they could eat together like friends did on TV! The demon would snark at her,  _ ‘What’s for dessert?’  _ and the obligatory laugh-track would play out. Oh, Vanya, would have the best friend of all. 

Once home, she googled necessary Latin phrases, finding that they were all very hard to pronounce and frowning. Unsettled, she searched spells, charms, and satanic rituals, clicking through multiple Pinterest boards, not knowing where else to find the necessary occult information. 

“Well,” Vanya considered aloud when all she found were aesthetically pleasing pictures of Ouija boards, devil’s food cake recipes, and information about fall weddings. “Maybe this will be a truly DIY ceremony, then.” 

She could handle this. She could do it. Father was on vacation in Mar-a-lago, being both a huge fan of golfing and neglecting his child. He would likely not even notice, say, that she accidentally set a can of Campbell’s Chicken & Stars soup ablaze as she made the mistake of lighting the candles before she had fully gathered all of her materials and thus jostled the lit candle sticks. Her bangs had singes at the tips, but Father wouldn’t notice that either. 

This would be great. She would finally be not alone, and she would have a friend, and they wouldn’t leave her, and she’d be happy. It would all be okay, everything she experienced, so long as she had a friend to tell about all of her troubles at the end of the day. Someone she could lay down next to when the nightmares got too scary or when Father yelled too loud. Someone who wouldn’t look at the bruises and scars on her skin in horror. 

She would have a friend, so it would all be okay. 

She would be okay. 

Vanya wasn’t sure what she truly said as she stuttered out the Latin phrases, but she thought she might have said the number Five accidentally. Whatever, it would be fine. 

Suffice to say, it wasn’t. 

_ “Who dares summon me?”  _ A voice hissed out, and Vanya frowned at the cloud of smoke. 

“Could you, like, get a more corporeal form, please?”

The cloud of smoke, despite being a cloud of smoke, seemed to blink in astonishment. Finally, like it was irritated at the command, it sighed loudly and became a much more tangible thing. 

Still, he was just a shadow with a rictus grin and arms crossed over his chest cockily. His eyebrows, if one could imagine a tangible shadow to have them, raised in arrogant amusement. 

“What is your name?” Vanya asked, crossing her arms over her chest as well, but mainly because he seemed to be somehow looking through her clothing and she didn’t want him to see anything. 

“Five,” the demon said, unimpressed with her. “Which you should know, considering you summoned  _ me _ specifically. What do you want?”

Vanya glowered at him, “I didn’t summon  _ you  _ specifically.”

“Hmm, along with some horribly mispronounced Latin phrases, you absolutely said my name. Screamed it, really. Haven’t heard a human yell my name with that much enthusiasm for centuries, honestly,” he was clearly smirking at her, and she felt like she could see a flicker of a more human form as he eyed her then. “You know, hiring a prostitute is a much simpler and safer feat.” 

She gasped, stunned at his complete disregard for anything remotely  _ couth. _ “I’m  _ not  _ looking for a prostitute.”

“Oh, angel, trust me, I could do you a service-“

“I am looking for a  _ best friend,”  _ Vanya screamed at him, cutting off whatever he was about to say, making his eyes flash in satisfying (compared to all the other emotions she had seen from him) bewilderment. “I am looking for a best friend, so stop making fun of me.”

Vanya had gathered the candles, recited the Latin, did everything  _ right _ , yet she still wound up with this asshole incredulously asking, “You raised a demon because you wanted a best friend?”

Vanya sat down on her bed, displacing a can of SpaghettiOs®️ with Franks as she did. She picked up the can, lest she need it to throw at his stupid not-a-face later. Five glanced down at her sodium circle, frowning and asking, “Why the fuck do you have soup cans in a circle on your floor?”

“Sodium,” Vanya mumbled, glancing down and hiding behind her singed bangs. “Like salt, you know? In case I needed protection.”

“I,” he was about to start ranting before he saw her face. “Why are you looking for a best friend this way?”

She blushed, “I didn’t want them to leave.”

“That’s possessive,” he commented. 

Vanya flinched.

“No,” Five was suddenly right in front of her, moving through the sodium circle with no hesitation, like he could teleport almost. “That’s a  _ good _ quality. I  _ love  _ possessing things.”

“You don’t gotta try to make me feel better,” Vanya said, curling into herself on the mattress and shoving her arms against her face to cover her eyes. The SpaghettiOs®️with Franks rolled pathetically to the far end of her bed, threatening to sink into the crevice between the mattress and the wall. She wished she could vanish as easily as they did. 

“Yeah, I do,” Five said, interrupting her thoughts, responding to her comment in a tone not befitting a demon at all; she would almost dare to call it  _ soft.  _ “I’m your best friend, aren’t I?”

She knew he was saying this out of obligation, that he was being commanded to do this, that he didn’t actually want to be her friend. Because no one wanted to be her friend, not truly, not when they looked just a little bit closer than surface level. Most people didn’t even skim over the surface, either.

It was what made her act the way she did next, knowing that she would never have another chance of having a friend. That he couldn’t leave until she commanded that. So Vanya peeked from under her arm, staring at the semi-corporeal form resting against her bed, and asked, “You are?”

He shrugged, “Sure, why not? What’s your name, by the way?”


	2. Kissing Boys (and Stealing from the Rich!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exposition? In chapter two? It’s more likely than you think.
> 
> Also... I am not making chapter summaries for this.... because I don’t need that negativity in my life 😤😤

Vanya laid down against her bed, watching the shadow-y figure pick up a can of soup at random, do some horrifying thing that involved summonings of hell-fire and teeth she’d be willing to bet did _not_ belong to his person to open the can, and ask for a spoon politely. 

“Why didn’t you ask for a can opener?” Vanya asked, leading him downstairs to the kitchen and opening her silverware drawer, holding the soup in her hand. “It was entirely unnecessary what you did up there, not to mention disgusting.”

His rictus grin inverted itself abruptly, turning into a bemused frown. “I didn’t realize that that grossed you out. Sorry.” 

She raised a brow at him. “What kind of demon are you?”

“That seems like an offensive question somehow.”

“There are like Greater Demons, right?”

“I like to think of myself as the  _ Greatest _ Demon.” 

“You’re Satan?”

“What?” Five spat. “Of course not. He’s overpaid, anyways. And a narc. And I heard a rumor that he used to be an angel, which is lame.”

“Wait, were you insulting me when you called me an angel earlier?” 

Five gaped at her, quickly attempting to backtrack, hastily sputtering in some ancient forgotten language Vanya didn’t need to understand to know he was saying bullshit to cover his ass. 

“It’s fine,” Vanya mumbled, feeling her ears turning pink as she meekly asked what she feared. “Is it because I’m a virgin?”

_ “What?” _

“I’m sure you can sense it with like your demon scanners or whatever, like gaydar but for virginal losers, and I know it’s sad that I’m 18 and haven’t-“

“Vanya,” Five said quickly, his form flickering back to that near-human body she hadn’t been certain she’d seen before. “No, it’s. Uh… fine. That you’re… an, uh-“

“Oh my god, you  _ do  _ judge me,” Vanya whimpered, hiding her face behind her hand. “In my defense, it’s hard when everybody hates me.”

“I don’t think everyone hates you.”

“Everyone hates me.”

“You seem pretty likable, honestly.”

“You’re a demon, you have bad judgement.”

“And, yet, good enough for you to want to be my best friend.” 

“Well, yeah,” Vanya said. “I’m desperate.” 

The demon looked offended, switching back to the much more frightening shadow body. “Well, if that’s how you feel.” Mist bunched up where his chest would be, and she was certain he was crossing his arms over his chest. He stalked off to the kitchen counter, jumping onto it and staring resolutely ahead of him. 

“Are you…  _ pouting?”  _ Vanya asked him incredulously.

He opened his mouth, unleashing more hell-fire that landed on the granite countertop, the fire jumping off it and screaming in pain, making her wonder if it was actually entrapped souls trying to flee.

“Did you just stick your tongue out at me?” Vanya asked, unimpressed with his childlike display of insolence.

“No,” Five snapped, looking very unthreatening for such a macabre beast. 

Vanya hid her smile behind her hair, but she could sense that he knew it was there by the way he sighed loudly again. 

“Who even tries to summon a demon for a best friend? Is it because this is how annoying you are on a regular basis?” Five snarked, adding venom to his velvety voice. She threw the can at his face, watching as he jerked away from the soup as if it would burn him. 

“So the sodium content trick  _ did  _ work.”

“No. I just don’t like chicken broth.”

“You were about to eat it,” Vanya said, rolling her eyes.

“I was trying to make sure you had dinner. Friends make sure friends eat, don’t they?” Five said, still very much pouting.

Vanya shrugged, “Yeah, I guess they do. That’s what they do on TV at least.”

“You’ve really never had a friend before?” Five asked, sounding much more sincere than he had all night. If he had pockets, she’d say his posture suggested he was shrugging his hands into them. 

“No,” Vanya admitted. She turned the attention away from her, unused to it and uncomfortable with it. “Maybe because I’m  _ this annoying on a regular basis.” _

“Sorry about that,” Five said, turning his not-quite-a-head away. “I just haven’t dealt with… your kind in years.” 

“Virgins?”

“You said you were eighteen,” Five noted, changing the subject away from that. “Why have you not left home?”

Vanya shrugged. “It’s kinda hard when you can't afford it.”

“You could order me to rob a bank, you know,” Five offered. “Or steal all the money from a billionaire of your choice. Won’t be the worst thing I’d do to them, considering billionaires are my favorite to punish back home.”

“Did you just call Hell  _ ‘home’?” _

“I could make you the richest person alive, technically. If you wanted. And manipulate enough minds to where nobody even suspects how you acquired your wealth,” Five stalked forward to her, seeming to realize he had a purpose. “So, why, Vanya? Why would you summon me to be your  _ ‘best friend’  _ when you could have that instead?”

Vanya made a face at the way he used finger quotes and emphasized the words ‘best friend’ so scathingly. “Because I  _ accept _ that I’m not going to get away from him, but I want at least somebody who cares. Even though clearly you don’t.”

“First of all, I’m a demon, and that’s not how that works. I bet a lot of them would have killed you for daring to awaken us for such a ridiculous request, so you should be  _ thankful _ for me.  _ Second  _ of all, who is the  _ him _ you are referring to? Some asshole boyfriend or something?” Five was right up against her face, hot breath fanning across it. She was slightly confused how it was possible to smell like mint, wondering if he somehow found a way to pop a mint into his semi-floating mouth. His lips curled into a cruel grin, “Because I can also kill, Vanya. Help your guy problem.” 

Vanya glanced away, not wanting to meet his gaze. “No, not a boyfriend.”

“Then  _ who?” _

Vanya shook her head, “It doesn’t matter.”

Father was talented at controlling Vanya in many ways. She knew that Five would stand no chance against him, and she knew that he wouldn’t understand if she tried to explain. Her father was evil on a level that Five wouldn’t be able to fathom. 

“Tell me,” Five insisted, pushing closer to her, and involuntarily she flinched away. The shadow backed off instantly. “Sorry.”

She realized off-handedly that she had been watching his mouth in fascination before he backed away. Vanya took a second to look at it now while he was averting his gaze from her. Vanya had never been kissed before, had never even tried to kiss someone else. She was afraid, sometimes, what it would be like once she finally did. It was odd, how much one can fascinate and fixate on something that when it finally happened it would be all wrong. For the first time in her life, Vanya had a friend, except she really didn’t. He didn’t  _ want  _ to be her friend; she had forced him into it. Vanya wondered, for just a flash of a second, if she commanded him to kiss her, would he have to do so?

Her heart started to pound, likely in horror at her own thoughts, utterly revulsed with herself. 

Vanya decided the only way to stave off her guilt was to answer Five’s question, since it was the only thing he’d indicated wanting. “My Father.” 

The human form was back for an instant as he looked back to her, but he seemed to notice it quicker, making himself appear as the demon again. He was an attractive man, in that form, and she wondered why he presented in this one instead. Although, she didn’t quite know why a demon would bother to be vain, at least in the ways she would think of vain. Surely, demons thought of something much different when they thought of  _ attractive.  _

“Your Father?” Five asked after Vanya had been staring at him in silence long enough. 

“My Father,” Vanya said, glancing down. “Is not a very good man.” 

“I  _ would  _ kill him, Vanya. If you asked.” 

She shook her head, “You couldn’t.”

He smirked, and she realized that there was something still attractive to this form, the way it exuded that arrogance and cunning. The way his grin showed his bright white teeth, canines sharpened to form a disturbing mixture of cat-like, feral, and absolutely unhinged. 

“Oh, Vanya,” he drawled. “I absolutely could.”

Still, despite how frightening he was trying to look, she knew it was pointless. “You couldn’t,” Vanya repeated. “And I  _ order  _ you to stop talking about it.”

His mouth closed into a thin line, and his grin was gone. 

Vanya found herself looking at his mouth regardless, heart speeding up again, wondering how she could still feel guilt when she was purposefully stifling that feeling away. 

She met his eyes just as she saw his human form again, saw the way his jugular vein twitched as he clenched his jaw. His eyes were green, but she could see flecks of blue. 

“Why don’t you stay in this form?” Vanya asked, jerking her chin to gesture to him. 

“Are you going to  _ order  _ me to answer?” Five snarled. 

She didn’t fall for his trap, knew that he couldn’t hurt her at all because he likely already would have, knew that she couldn’t appear weak in front of him as she already had by mentioning Father. Father would tell her she was weak, she knew. Father would tell her that nobody loves tattletales, and she’d take it to heart, wearing long sleeves and pants to school so surely no one would see what he did. The logic was that someday, eventually, perhaps by not being a tattletale, someone then might love her. 

Vanya wouldn’t be weak. 

“I will if you don’t answer me.”

He sighed, “I can’t keep this form. Not for long periods of time, at least.” 

“Why not?” 

“Is there something you don’t understand about me being a demon?”

“Demons can look human,” Vanya told him, thinking to her Father, far away at a resort until he would deign to come home. “Trust me on that.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and enabling me to not work on kinktober or fiveya week!!! 😏😏


	3. Intermission (or, a Soliloquy on Why Vanya Would Likely Get Murdered if She Had No Demon Friend and She Needs Said Demon Friend and Said Demon Friend Technically Needs Her Too)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for all the positive responses to this story! My goal was to update a few WIPs today, and this was on the list just because people actually like this thing for some reason (I love writing it, though, so we’re good.)
> 
> Also... Five’s chapters are titled like Fall Out Boy songs and it is because he’s a dramatic bitch.

Five had ambivalent feelings towards being a demon. 

There were some things that he didn’t mind about the job- the killing and terrorizing were alright, but it got boring after a while. There were only so many ways to feasibly kill a person, and when somebody has been alive for as long as he has, it gets to a point that killing doesn’t bring _joy_ anymore. Five had gotten to the point where he wondered what _else_ he could do. Could he work as an accountant? Surely that would be a much more fulfilling life. Maybe he should get a puppy. There _was_ a Hellhound breeder in Hell, but he’d always been told “adopt, don’t shop” and he didn’t know where any Hellhound rescues were. 

Five would quite possibly admit that he was having some sort of internal crisis. 

Which is why, when he heard a tiny voice mispronouncing Latin atrociously, he listened. The human was clearly struggling and clearly googling these phrases and saying “eh” and just winging it. Five was pretty certain that they were going to end up summoning some dickhead demon like Asmodeus or something, and, suddenly, he had a purpose again. 

He waited until he found something mildly close to “quinque” and announced to the crowd of demons torturing the soul of some congress member who’d died in the eighties that he had been summoned. 

“They have such a strong grasp on me,” Five said in a monotone. “I might be gone for years.”

The demons shrugged like, ‘hey, it happens to the best of us’, and Five ascended to earth. 

When he saw the petite brunette, he remembered that she thought she’d successfully summoned him, and, to cover his ass, he yelled out, “Who dares summon me?”

She blinked up to him, and he watched her apprehensively for a few moments before she explained what she had ‘summoned’ him for. He had to resist the urge to laugh at her request, but he wasn’t sure if he was successful in the endeavor. 

But she was sincere in a way that he would never see anywhere else, and, if anything, this would be a fascinating experience. 

And she was, for lack of better words, completely adorable. 

* * *

Which was how, three weeks later, he was being forced to buy her ice cream. Five felt she would probably frown upon him having stolen from a bank to pay for the excursion, but he made a point to steal from a bank in an affluent part of town. She forced him to stay in his human form, and he, still under the guise of having been forced to be there, followed the order without any complaint. 

“Why are you forcing us to get ice cream?” Five asked, taking a bite of bubblegum and butter pecan that he’d ordered because she hated both of those flavors and wouldn’t steal from him. She was staring at him in frank disgust at his selection, but she was voluntarily eating mint chocolate chip, so clearly she was just trying to be contrarian. 

“Friends get ice cream,” Vanya said, which is generally what she said when she was making him do something abhorrent. He watched the mint chocolate chip start to dribble down her chin and wanted to ask if friends also licked each other’s faces, but he figured that would probably make her uncomfortable. Instead, he grabbed a napkin and wiped her face, watching the way her blush started to travel down her neck and the little bit of skin exposed above her collarbone. 

Five stifled a groan of frustration, replying, “What else do you have on your agenda?”

“I need to grab a container of ice cream while we’re here. Chocolate. And then I have to stop by the drug store for something.” 

Five raised his brows, “I’m not going to judge you for getting your period.”

She shushed him, staring frantically around the near-empty ice cream parlor. He frowned at her, “Nobody cares, Vanya. It’s a natural bodily function, you know.” 

Vanya gave him a disapproving look, making her nose scrunch up and effectively ruining the attempt to reproach him as he wanted to keep saying whatever would make her keep making that face. 

“Well, regardless, I need to go to the drug store.”

He nodded, forcing himself to not make a face as he swallowed more bubblegum ice cream. It truly was an odious flavor, but Vanya had gotten this adorable wrinkle in her forehead when he’d ordered it so it was worth it. 

“We should watch that show when we get home,” Five said. “The one with the attractive doctors that are bad at their job.”

 _“Grey’s Anatomy?”_ Vanya asked. “I thought you said you hated Derek Shepherd.” 

“I do,” Five explained. “He’s the worst, but I like Cristina Yang. She has spunk.”

“Spunk?” Vanya seemingly decided to let it pass. “Weren’t we planning on watching _The X-Files_ tonight?”

Five shrugged, “Whatever you want to do.”

She beamed at him, and he decided that this was his favorite expression of hers. 

* * *

Vanya rested her head against his shoulder, curled up to his side as she shoveled scoops of chocolate ice cream into her mouth and stared, completely engrossed, at Mulder and Scully. She’d gone on a long rant about “shipping” the other day, and he’d tried to understand whatever she was saying but he was unable to focus on much more than the animated way she waved her hands around when she was explaining something she had a lot of feelings about. 

Five slung an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer so that he could smell her green apple conditioner and silently judge himself for it.

* * *

Vanya pressed her forehead to his own, arms wrapped around him and blinking sleepily. 

“What is it?” Five asked, feeling her heart pound and wanting to help her. 

She watched him a second before murmuring, tired enough that she was sharing thoughts that she would normally not, “Sometimes I pretend this is real.”

“What do you mean?” He shifted so that she was fitted more comfortably to him. Moonlight rested against her cheek in the otherwise dark room, and he could tell that she was apprehensive to keep speaking. 

She did, though. “I know you’re not really my best friend, but I sometimes pretend that you are. You’re the only friend I’ve ever had, and I know thst _you’re_ not even truly my friend.”

Five wanted to tell her that he had chosen this, but he couldn’t now. He’d been lying to her, and he didn’t want her to be mad at him. “You are my friend, V,” Five said, meaning it. He’d never had a friend either, so, by default, she was his best friend (and he imagined if he had other friends, she _still_ would be the best one). “I like spending time with you.”

She sighed. “You don’t have to lie to me about that, Five. I know that you can’t have friends.”

Five would’ve actually agreed with that statement, before he met her, but she made the concept of friendship actually worth a shit to him. “I was lonely in Hell,” Five admitted, both to himself and her. If she was going to be vulnerable like this, he would at least extend the courtesy. “I considered getting a dog.”

She gasped, horrified. “Dogs can go to Hell?”

“Oh, no. I meant Hellhounds. They prefer the climate there.” 

She nodded, looking like she still didn’t understand despite his clear explanation. Then, she seemed to realize something. “You actually want me… as a friend?”

“‘Fraid so.”

She glared at him, and he couldn’t help but smile at her. “Despite the fact that you are a complete mess, I find that I actually like you, Vanya.”

Her eyes filled with so much hope, and she smiled again, hugging him tighter. He rested his chin on her head. At this moment, Five felt truly and completely happy. There was a feeling starting to rear in his gut, though, something akin to dread, and he couldn’t fathom _why_ he’d feel it, other than that he was worried that this was going to be the last good day for a while. He chased the thought away, embracing her securely. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! This one I’m pretty confident will be done before fiveya week (check out the fivevanya tumblr for details on that btw!) because it’s one of my simpler fics to work on, so if you’re following the story


	4. Burning Bridges (and Having an Existential Crisis!)

She’d never expected that her friendship with Five would go horribly wrong, but she supposed it made sense that the reason it did was _Father._

When he’d come home from his extended vacation, it took less than three minutes of him berating her before she’d sunken into that place she resided in when he was around. It was like existing underwater, like the presence of him alone made her feel like she was seconds from drowning completely. 

After he was done, she trudged up the stairs, tears filling her eyes. Five was waiting for her in her bedroom, existing in his shadow form, flicking through a Bible (and likely laughing at sections of The Book of Revelations, something that had vexed her last week, which he’d explained that not only would he ‘burn up’ if he held a Bible but that The Book of Revelations was truly the only chapter worth reading). Of course, once she caught sight of her sobbing, he set the book down. “He’s a dick,” Five quipped, but he shifted to his corporeal form, opening up his arms to her expectantly. It occurred to her that he was offering to _hug_ her, and she ran forward, embracing him and feeling the tears spill over. “Vanya, you shouldn’t listen to anything he says-”

“I need you to go.” 

Five jerked away, like she’d burned him the way a Bible apparently couldn’t. _“What?”_

“I need you-” A sob made the next words to come out choked. “To _go.”_

“Why?” He wasn’t moving at all, and she felt herself grow frustrated. 

“I _order_ you to leave.” 

“What did he say to you?” Five snapped. “Why are you acting like this?” 

She couldn’t say it- that just seeing Father had reminded her that she wasn’t the type of person that good things happened to. That he’d reminded her that she offered nothing to Five, and he was better to leave her now before she inevitably disappointed him. The fact that he was so kind to her made her feel that she had to stop this before she did something to make him _want_ to leave. 

“I need you to tell me why you are telling me to leave. There is no way I’m going to leave when you’re this upset, Vanya. You can’t expect that from me.” 

When he started to reach for her again, she flinched away, watching his eyes fill with concern, but he didn’t move closer. “Why are you asking me to leave?” Five asked softly. “You know that if I leave, there's a chance I may never be able to come back, right?” 

She hadn’t, but she didn’t change her mind, knowing that him leaving would be for the best. 

When Five seemed to realize the line of her thinking, he added, “The only way you’ll even be able to get to Hell is through Florida, where the gates are. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to get back to you, Vanya, and you’d have to go through unimaginable pain to get back to me.”

They’d spent the past few months together, and they’d been the only time she’d felt like she had left that haze.

“Vanya, _please,_ don’t make me leave.” 

This was better, for both of them. 

“I’ll do whatever you ask, just please, _please,_ don’t make me leave you behind.”

She’d convince herself eventually.

“Vanya-”

At least she hoped she could.

“Go,” Vanya interrupted softly, and he vanished. 

* * *

She ate dinner alone, pretty certain Father had fucked off again because she couldn’t sense the veil of evil in her house anymore. Because she was alone, already missing Five, she found a book in the library and ate dinner while she pages through it. When she realized that she was eating canned soup, she dropped her spoon and planted her face in the bowl, sobbing and accepting she might be acting a little melodramatic but figuring that truly, she deserves some theatrics for once in her life.

* * *

Apparently, theatrics weren’t really her thing. She’d planned to have a breakdown that either involved crying on a bus while sad music played over her _or_ dancing in a scant amount of clothing while pop music played over her. Unfortunately, she had to live with the reality that everything in her life was awful in relative silence.

Each time she looked at the votive candles (some still wrapped in plastic with a half off sticker slapped on top), she’d feel the urge to summon Five again. 

The thing was- now that Vanya knew what it was like to have a friend, what it was like to not feel so _alone,_ going back to the life she’d once accepted felt impossible. 

She _could_ summon him, and, if he didn’t answer the call, she could always summon another demon- literally a rebound from Hell. There would probably be no other demons that accepted her friendship bracelets though. 

As she had the thought, it occurred to her that she could summon Five _through_ them. If she threw her bracelet on to one of the candles, maybe he’d respond to the call.

* * *

He didn’t respond to it. All that happened was her ceiling had another scorch mark. For a second, she’d thought he was coming, the smoke turning into something a little demon-shaped before it seemed to think better of it and leave. 

Which, yeah, it probably was Five, then. It would make sense that he would appear for a few minutes just to vex and torment her. He was a demon, after all.

* * *

Vanya flipped through a Grimoire she’d found from some shady shop a couple hours away, hoping it would offer her a solution to the loneliness problem. This time, she was going to summon someone much taller and cooler than Five, like Cthulhu (mental note- google who Cthulhu actually was). 

She’d developed a new mentality- that Father was the worst, and he _should_ die. 

See, she’d come to this conclusion when he’d not come home for six months, and she’d realized she’d forced Five to leave her behind because of him when Father hadn’t even bothered to _speak_ to her. 

And she was tired doing what she thought Father would want from her. The only reason she even knew that he was aware he had a child was because she regularly got money deposited into her bank account from him, like if he could pay her enough, he didn’t have to interact with her or be a father. She supposed it made sense, given that he had such an excess of money that he likely didn’t even notice, that it wasn’t even him directly handling her living expenses but his lawyer, Dr. Pogo. 

When she came to this conclusion, she’d started truly researching how to best summon demons, to figure out how exactly she would get the man to die and get F—

The point of the matter was that she needed to find another demon. 

And, through that research, she met Leonard Peabody.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading💕💕💕💕


	5. Making New Friends (and Raising Hell!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for being so patient in waiting for an update! I am so appreciative of all the kudos, comments, and bookmarks on this fic. This is the one that I really enjoy writing on, and I’m super excited to write the sequel, too! Hopefully, you will all enjoy this update! This is going to include the first of any type of smut within this fic, and I’m excited to see how y’all react to it!💕

Vanya met Leonard at what she was pretty sure was just a demonic cult. Either that, or it was a very drunk group of women at the local Chili’s, discussing episodes of  _ Supernatural.  _ They kept mentioning gay superhell, though, so her interest had been officially piqued. 

Leonard was saying something along the lines of the Impala going to Heaven actually being a good thing, which Vanya felt was probably controversial given the women’s expressions. She was pretty sure that he’d come from the bar to their table to mansplain the ending, but, if anybody knew about all things evil and wrong, it would be a man trying to explain something entirely wrong while drinking a $5 Marg of the Month. 

Hoping to reel him in, she walked forward to the man and said, “I need you to explain to me a concept that I fully understand but will pretend to listen to you rant about because I’m uncomfortable and don’t want to get murdered, so it’s easier to just listen to you talk because you get off on hearing your own voice.”

He raised his brows, telling the women to have a good night and following Vanya to her booth.

* * *

Leonard wasn’t precisely like Five. While Five had certainly been  _ moody,  _ he hadn’t exactly gone from soft and kind to nearly violent in a matter of seconds. 

But he was  _ so _ friendly to her when he chose to be friendly. 

“So, you’re planning to summon a demon?” he asked now, while Vanya ate a mixture of bubblegum and butter pecan ice cream. She did not like  _ either  _ of those flavors, abhorred them really, but the flavors reminded her of her estranged demon best friend. 

“I am,” Vanya told him, realizing that there were pecans in butter pecan. She’d always thought it was more of an expression than anything. “I’ve done it successfully before.”

“It must be easier for you,” Leonard said sheepishly. “I’ve always struggled to summon demons.”

“Oh, why? It’s not super hard or anything, but they can be  _ dicks  _ sometimes.” She glared in the direction of Hell, remembering how Five had said the gates were in Florida. If she had to take a guess, it would probably be Orlando. Or Panama. Or, really, any place in Florida. How the fuck was Florida still allowed to be a state? 

“Well, I mean, it makes sense that it’d be easier for a virgin, since they’re attracted to that.”

Vanya dropped her ice cream on the table, feeling her insecurity peak in that second. “How do you know I’m a virgin?” Had someone written it on Sharpie on her face again? Or was it the vibe she gave off? Did she  _ look _ like a virgin?

“I just figured. You’ve never had friends before me, right?”

She felt the urge to defend Five, but then she’d remembered how that bracelet had burnt up, like he’d taken her offering only to laugh at her. “Well, no, but how does that affect whether or not I am a virgin?”

He set his hand on hers, and she looked up at his brown eyes, hopeful. “I don’t judge you for it, Vanya,” he promised, squeezing her hand. “You should wait for the right person.” He glanced down, and she couldn’t tell if he was faking being shy or if he had just never interacted with another human being before. Either way, it was a mood. “Maybe you’ll find the right person, sooner or later.”

Her mind went to a rictus grin and a shadow in a cocky stance. “Maybe I already have.”

* * *

It had been the conversation with Leonard that made Vanya realize that she had been going about summoning her demon friend wrong all along. Five was a  _ demon.  _ Of  _ course  _ he’d want a virgin. Hell, he’d even mentioned her virginity multiple times, and one of the first things he’d suggested when he’d been summoned had been that she’d hired him as a demonic gigolo. Perhaps the reason he had even  _ suggested  _ that was because he’d wanted to have sex with her. 

And, well, if having sex with her friend brought him back to her, she was willing to make that sacrifice. That sacrifice, of course, being her virginity. 

However, there were a few things that she had to, research wise, first. First of all, could one get pregnant from demons? Signs pointed to yes, if Violet from  _ American Horror Story  _ was any indication. Violet’s mom had to be at least  _ part _ demon, to think that Dylan McDermott was worth staying with, who was definitely a demon in that show, but like the bad kind that Vanya had heard about but never interacted with. Five seemed a little more wholesome, but she had no idea if he had to wear rubbers or not. 

There was also the fact that she didn’t know  _ how  _ she was supposed to have sex with a bunch of shadows that sometimes looked like a human and sometimes looked more like just chaos personified. Vanya was pretty sure that he’d know how to have sex with his body, but she couldn’t really seduce Five without knowing how to have sex with him. Plus, if she searched demon porn on the internet, she’d be willing to bet it was just congress members or riddled with anatomical inaccuracies. Plus, she’d read articles on how Pornhub was exploitative of the sex work industry, and she didn’t want to make anybody get hurt from her explorations. 

So she decided that  _ reading _ demon porn was the next best thing, so she headed to  _ Barnes & Noble,  _ asking a bookseller to recommend her a few books on demon sex. 

“Uh, is there any specific things that you’re searching for?’

“Maybe like a shadow-y demon, I dunno. Pretty much just has a mouth that’s distinguishable at all times. And none of that softcore stuff, I’m trying to learn.”

The worker frowned at her, pointing her in the direction of the erotica section, finding some of the paranormal erotica stories with covers that had men that did  _ not  _ look like Five. Well, not in the form he usually presented himself with. She supposed in his most human form he  _ did  _ look like some of the pretty men on these covers, but she didn’t think that he would be comfortable keeping that form for very long. Vanya didn’t mind what he looked like when they were together. In truth, she just wanted to lose her virginity to someone she really loved, and she’d never had a friend before Five but she imagined she’d never be able to love a friend the way she loved Five. He was her  _ best  _ friend. 

When she got home, still empty as it always was, she marched to her room with purpose, holding a bag with a few paranormal eroticas that were probably innacurate but essential for getting her in the  _ mood.  _

Laying back on her bed, she flipped through the stories, trying to get herself worked up but unable to do so when she kept looking at the scorch marks where Five had come from the first time around. 

Glancing around self-consciously, she called out the names of anybody that could possibly be there, trying to confirm that she was completely alone. When she was certain, she stepped over to the drawer that she’d avoided looking at since Five left and opened it. 

_ Technically,  _ Vanya had used his demon powers for a sex-related, not friend-related reason once. In her defense, she had been very flustered since he’d come, and he’d also made a point to explain how often he could give her anything in the world. Every time she had walked by the store downtown… Well, she hadn’t been able to ever work up the nerve. 

So, she’d done what any reasonable person would do in her situation and asked him to get her a vibrator. Sure, she could have gotten one herself, but the shame of asking what size she was supposed to have was too much. Five had, thankfully, not even questioned it, just high-fived her and did that teleporting thing he did, disappearing into a bunch of shadows. When he’d come back, he’d given her so much variety that she was certain he might have just stolen the entire shop. However, when she asked him about it, he told her, “I actually stole from a billionaire’s bank account and paid for it with that money.”

Vanya hadn’t been sure if it was all of the sex toys, sex toy cleaners, and lubricant within his grasp, but she’d never thought the man had ever looked more beautiful. He’d  _ paid  _ for them? Well, using billionaire’s money, but billionaires getting stolen from was okay because they steal labor from the poor and drain them of everything to hoard their wealth like dragons. 

Looking at all of the vibrators now, she felt tears prick her vision. She missed him so much. Hopefully, this would summon him. 

She grabbed one of the wands, the kind that people that were full of shit called ‘massagers.’ It was the least intimidating one, and it didn’t require any lube because it was meant for clitoral stimulation. Five would likely enjoy the one that brought her the most pleasure, anyways, and this one felt safe and trustworthy so it would probably even get her in the mindset of being with him. As she laid back on the bed, she pushed away the smut novels, knowing her own imagination would be the most accurate, anyways.

Her mind drifted, and she just thought of how safe he made her feel at first. How unjudged. Always looking at her like she was his best friend, even though he’d only been her best friend out of obligation to the occult or whatever. She imagined how their first time would be, if they were ever to sleep together. He’d be gentle because she would cry if he didn’t, and he hated it when she cried. Plus, she couldn’t imagine him being anything  _ but  _ sweet with her. 

Vanya would ask him to kiss her, and she’d keep asking until he just started doing it on his own. He’d take her in his arms, murmuring that he was glad that they were friends, that he got to be with his best friend in that way. 

Flicking the vibrator on, she thought of the smirk he’d give her when she sheepishly admitted she’d always wanted this, how he’d press that mouth that was ever-present between her legs, working her up until she was begging for more. 

His name slipped from her lips, and then she was chanting it, imagining that he’d be more likely to respond to a summoning if he heard her say his name. Her body was starting to spasm up, in pleasure in a way she’d never experienced before, never having gotten the courage to try any of the sex toys. Pretty soon, she was biting her lip instead of saying his name, whimpers escaping her mouth. It was a pleasure nearly to the point of pain, but it wasn’t until she really reached her crest that she dropped the toy, crying against her pillow. 

“Vanya.”

That wasn’t Five. 

She flinched as she saw Leonard standing above her, but the way he was looking at her…

“Five?” she asked confusedly. 

“I took over his body. Vanya, there’s… You can’t spend time with him.”

“Wait, did summoning you this way actually work?”

He glanced at her pale legs spread out in front of him, her sweat-soaked body. “That’s not the point, V.”

“But  _ did  _ it?”

“It certainly helped motivate me.” He sighed, glancing back up at her face. “You can’t be around Leonard, okay?”

“Can’t you possess him forever?”

“Not really, no, but I’ll be back to you.”

“You burned up our friendship bracelet,” she blurted.

Five shook Leonard’s head. “First of all,  _ you  _ did. Second of all, some dickhead demon was trying to get up to you, and I had to kill him before he got there. So if you saw a demon at all, that wasn’t me. That was someone else.”

“You killed a demon for me?” How did one even kill a demon?

“He was a minor demon, one of the slutty Incubi, it wasn’t a big deal. Just don’t try to summon demons, V, because you clearly don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I summoned you,  _ twice.” _

He opened his mouth to argue, but ultimately just shrugged. “Don’t do it again for me, then.”

“Will you make me a promise in turn?”

“Sure, V.”

“You will return to me, in your real form, if I agree to summon no more demons.”

When he handed her his pinky, she blinked, assuming he’d seal the oath with blood or something. “Are you pinky-promising me?”

“A pinky-promise between two best friends is pretty powerful.” He only sounded mildly sarcastic saying it. 

She looped pinkies with him, knowing he wouldn’t break his promise. 

What she asked, then, wasn’t about promises. She needed reassurance. Hugging him and not caring that she was entirely naked as she did so, she whispered, “Five, can you stay with me forever once you’re back to me?”

“Of course I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! 💕 I’ll try to update as soon as possible, but I am trying not to make promises with these things anymore lmao 💕

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all so much for reading!!! This is gonna be the fic I work on for procrastinating Fiveya week/finishing up kinktober lmao, so I will probably work on it a lot (as I procrastinate a lot LMAO.) 
> 
> Check out the fivevanya tumblr for information about fiveya week, but it will be November 1st-November 7th and the prompts will be memories, dance/train, childhood, Sparrow AU, guilt, endings/beginnings, and free choice.


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